France's Elsa Zylberstein draws on viral sketches debut
France's Elsa Zylberstein draws on her viral lockdown sketches for her directorial debut, My Best Life, a comedy-drama co-written and co-directed with Michael Pierrard. Inspired by Mytho du soir, it stars Zylberstein as a failed actress who invents a glamorous career after her mother wakes from a stroke believing she is a star.
Key Takeaways
- Cesar winner Elsa Zylberstein will make her directing debut with My Best Life, produced by UGC on a €3.6 million budget.
- The comedy-drama keeps the fantasist spirit of her lockdown Instagram series Mytho du soir but tells a new mother-daughter story.
- She co-writes and co-directs with Michael Pierrard; Miou-Miou and Mathieu Demy are cast, with Lucas Bravo in talks.
- Canal+ and France Télévisions are backing the film, which aims for laughs and tears rather than broad satire.
French star Elsa Zylberstein is moving behind the camera with My Best Life, a comedy-drama rooted in emotion and family rather than broad satire. According to Variety, the project grew out of her pandemic-era social posts but is not a straight remake of those sketches. For more streaming and screen alerts, see our Streaming & TV Alerts hub.
What is My Best Life about?
In the film, Zylberstein plays a failed actress whose mother suffers a stroke and wakes up convinced her daughter has become an international movie star. Instead of correcting her, the heroine builds an increasingly elaborate fictional life to protect her mother — and, ultimately, herself.
"The film is really about the power of imagination," Zylberstein told Variety. "The message is simple: believe in your dreams. Imagination can save you." She also called it a mother-daughter story about how people rearrange reality, saying she wants audiences to laugh and cry.
She cited Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy as an influence on the character's edge, and named David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook and Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza for tone: funny and deeply moving at once.
How did viral lockdown sketches spark the film?
During the pandemic, Zylberstein posted Mytho du soir, a viral series of roughly 60 one-minute sketches on Instagram that often averaged about 80,000 views. She played a compulsive fantasist living as if lockdown never happened — throwing dinner parties, flying to New York, even interviewing Donald Trump.
Rather than adapt those bits wholesale, she kept only the central character and, with co-writer Michael Pierrard, built an entirely new story. She said the idea took shape after she saw how obsessed viewers were with the sketches because they offered an escape.
Who is joining Elsa Zylberstein on the project?
Zylberstein co-writes and co-directs with Pierrard, a longtime assistant director who made Mytho du soir with her and has worked with Claude Lelouch, Leos Carax, Sofia Coppola and Pawel Pawlikowski. Beloved French actor Miou-Miou plays her mother, Mathieu Demy plays her childhood best friend, and Lucas Bravo is in talks to play a famous actor suffering from burnout.
UGC produces on a €3.6 million budget with backing from Canal+ and France Télévisions. The key crew includes production designer Jean Rabasse, costume designer Pascaline Chavanne, Oscar-winning sound designer Nicolas Becker and sound engineer Erwann Kerzanet.
Zylberstein, a Cesar winner for I've Loved You So Long and recent lead in Simone: Woman of a Century, said she wants to put decades of lessons from great directors into practice. She is already writing a second feature and developing producing projects, including a Simone de Beauvoir–Nelson Algren romance.